A Little Red Bird

I saw a little red bird today.  A cardinal.  It was beautiful.  I remembered how some people associate those sightings with their lost loved ones.  I've never really put much stock in that belief, and I still don't, but it made me feel like God was with me, and it made me think of my brother.  I wondered what he would think about it.  I could almost hear him chuckle.  I could see him shrug his shoulders and that crazy grin of his, and. . . I just about fell to pieces. . . driving down the road. . . about a minute from school.

Tomorrow's the last day of school, and there's still some crazy part of me that thinks if I can just make it, everything will be okay.  I have a feeling tomorrow night or Saturday I really am going to fall apart.  I just know that somehow it's all a bad dream.  I keep waiting to wake up--like I did when we were young.  When I was in high school, and my brother was in elementary school, we used to watch Voltron cartoons on Saturday mornings, so one Friday night, I told him to wake me up when he got up, so we could watch them together.  Well, I don't know what all I dreamed that night, and I almost never remember my dreams, but when he came to wake me up that morning, it totally freaked me out because I had dreamed he died.  It was such a real dream that it kind of scared me when he woke me up!  Oh, how I wish that this would end that way.  I just want someone somewhere to say that it's all been some terrible mix up.  I know that I saw his body in the casket, but I still want someone to say that it wasn't him.  But no one has.  No one will.

I guess the bad thing about staying busy is that you don't have time to deal with things.  I think I've kept myself so busy (like teaching doesn't already) that I haven't dealt with this properly.  What is the proper way of dealing with something like this?!  I haven't been trained in proper grieving etiquette.  I'm thankful that I haven't suffered enough losses to be a pro at this yet, and I think if someone gave me a manual on the proper "procedure," I'd like to tear it up page by page by page until nothing but confetti remains and set fire to it.  No, I'd like to make it explode. . . tiny bits of ash everywhere!  So now, as life slows down for me, I am about to be forced to deal with the unthinkable:  my brother is gone, and all I have now is a little red bird.